Changes to Wireless Telegraphy Act Licence Charges

27 November 2003

The Radiocommunications Agency has today announced that new levels of licence fees for some licence classes will take effect from 16 December 2003.

Setting licence fees is a regular process; the changes this time aim to refine current arrangements and enable the introduction of new licence classes.

More details of the licence fee changes are available on the RA website at www.radio.gov.uk.

Notes for Editors

1. The Wireless Telegraphy Act 1998 came into force in the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in the summer of 1998. The Act enables the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, when setting fees for licences issued under Section 1 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, to take radio spectrum management and economic factors into account. It was announced that spectrum pricing would be implemented in annual stages from 1998.

2. Each successive year, RA has issued a consultation document seeking views from those affected by the proposed fee changes. Since 1998 we have gradually increased the scope of spectrum pricing principles to a greater number of licence products, and have reduced fees where there is less congestion, where spectrally efficient equipment is used or where there is dynamic sharing of spectrum. Fees have increased in areas of spectrum congestion; these increases have been phased in over a number of years to allow business time to adjust. We have also rationalised and simplified a number of licence classes.

3. Proposals for this year were detailed in the consultation document ‘Spectrum Pricing: Year Six’, which was published in March 2003. Formal notices of the new fees regulations were published in October 2003. (These consultative documents, along with a summary of responses received, are available on the RA website at www.radio.gov.uk under ‘Topic Pages’/‘Spectrum Pricing’.)

4. This year’s changes are designed to refine current fee arrangements, including arrangements for the application of market-based or incentive prices. The changes include:

• no changes to the majority of licence fees;
• a new facility enabling the staged payment of larger licence fees;
• the introduction of fees for the new GSM-R railway signalling network – this service forms part of a Europe-wide railway signalling system and operates on harmonised radio frequencies;
• the extension of spectrum pricing principles to Scanning Telemetry, phased in over a three-year period to lessen the impact on users;
• rationalised fees for Programme Making and Special Events, to reflect the reduced administrative costs associated with regular use of this spectrum; and
• the extension of the current 50% discount for registered charities that use radio equipment for safety purposes, currently available under certain licence classes, to cover all licences in the Aeronautical, Maritime and Private Business Radio sectors.

5. The proposals also include elements of ‘housekeeping’ necessary to enable the introduction of new services and to support measures designed to simplify and aid customer understanding of radio licensing.

6. The new fee levels will apply to the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

7. For more information about spectrum pricing, call RA’s Licensing Policy Unit on 020 7211 0514.

Press Enquiries: 020 7215 5974/5978
Out of Hours: 020 7215 0160
Public Enquiries: 020 7211 0514
Textphone (for people with hearing impairments): 020 7215 6740

RA/PN/2003/11